From pastor’s desk on the 3rd Sunday of Lent, year B
Why did our Lord become angry? – There is only one instance, in which we hear Jesus getting really angry. It is not during His trial or arguments with the Pharisees; although there too, we can hear some overtones of anger. It was upon Jesus’s visit to the Temple of Jerusalem when He manifested a divine wrath that which was also an expression of divine justice. What Jesus did in the Temple of Jerusalem only reflects what God did time and again while cleansing the Jewish people through exiles and foreign invasions.
According to the Gospel of John this event took place in the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry. In John’s gospel it was also the second sign that Jesus performed while manifesting His divine mission; first sign being changing water into wine in Cana. Jesus enter the courtyard of the Temple, where the Jews could exchange Roman coins for the Temple coins, the only acceptable currency in the Jewish liturgical norms. The Temple’s courtyard was also a sort of market place, where people could buy animals for sacrifices prescribed by the Torah. This practice had been now sanctioned for a couple of centuries. Having known that, Jesus’s reaction to the whole situation must have been a shock to the onlookers.
What Jesus saw in the Temple was not acceptable, for He perceived that all the trade and money exchange as something non-essential for the sincere worship of God. Moreover, all of that, as important as it seemed to the Jewish mentality, had become an obstacle to the pure knowledge of God. For people were more focused on the external practices rather than on the internal change. As Jesus pointed out in another place “You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:25).
As anything with our Lord, this action too should be interpreted in a spiritual way. Jesus Christ went to the Temple to show that it needed to be cleansed of all that did not belong to God. The Temple had to be cleansed of all human inventions of divine worship that took away people from true religion, that is, “when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth” (John 3:23). Lord Jesus is the One that reveals to the people what it means to worship God, that is, to render God what belongs to God: our hearts and souls.
So why did Jesus become angry? He became angry, for ultimately people were breaking the first commandment. By doing all that business they did not truly worship God but rather themselves. The trades in the Temple’s courtyard were only the symptoms of spiritual disease.
Jesus’s action can also be interpreted as a warning for the future Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ. Jesus wants the Church to be pure and humble, a place where people can find true God. It should not be a place of business and it should not be run like business. Otherwise, its structures will fall apart, as we can see over and over again in the Church’s history.
While mediating upon this Sunday’s gospel, let us remember that prayer and offering something to God is not bargaining with God. We cannot do business with God. We can only do what He tells us to do through His Son Jesus Christ. Our role is to humbly accept it. We should pray that when we “come to Church” we might leave the worldly things behind. We can render true worship only by admitting our sinfulness and recognizing God’s mercy for us. In this way God may be in the first place and our petty affairs and businesses laid aside.
Have a blessed week. Fr. Janusz Mocarski, pastor